ROMULEA BULBOCODIUM

Family and Genus:- See- IRIDACEAE

Common Names:- None

Homotypic Synonyms:- Crocus bulbocodium, Ixia bulbocodium, Trichonema

bulbocodium.

Meaning:- Romulea (L) For Romulus, founder of Rome.

Bulbocodium (Gr) Bulb-headed.

General description:- Herbaceous plant, with erect, hairless stems.

Scape:-

1) 1- to 6-flowered.

Leaves:-

1) Basal, 2, 25-30 cm x 0·8-2 mm, curved and procumbent or straight and

ascending.

2) Cauline, up to 5.

Flowers:-

1) Very variable in colour; tube and throat usually yellow; segments white to lilac or

violet, greenish or with 1-5 dark lines outside.

2) Bracts, 1-2·1 cm, purplish or with reddish-brown dots, with a very narrow

scarious, margin.

3) Bracteole, equalling the bract but wider, acute, (obtuse when flattened out),

scarious, or with a narrow green keel, brownish.

4) Perianth, (1-)2-3·5(5·5) cm; tube 3·5-8 mm.

5) Segments, elliptical to oblong-oblanceolate, usually acute.

6) Filaments, hairy below.

7) Anthers, top reaching to about the middle of the segments or a little higher.

Fruit:-

1) Capsule, oblong to globose.

2) Seeds, usually numerous, globose, brownish, without a strophiole.

Key features:-

1) Flowers, variable in colour, but not with darker veins inside.

2) Stigmas, usually above the top of the anthers.

3) Perianth, (1-)2-3·5(-5·5) cm.

Click here for a glossary of terms used.

Habitat:- Seasonally damp grassland, rocky slopes with open dry shrubby

vegetation, gravelly flats, often near the sea, but ascending to 1600 m. in dolines.

Distribution:- Widespread and common throughout the Mediterranean but not the

Balearic Is., Cyprus or parts of the extreme E. Mediterranean. Widespread and

common on Crete.

Flowering time:- Late Feb to early May.

Photos by:- Steve Lenton